The GOP won't give up on Benghazi for the simple reason
that any and everything no matter how big, small, trivial, or downright nutty,
that even remotely allows it to slur President Obama it will race to the stars
with. Benghazi is not simply the latest in the hit plan against Obama but the
longest standing and most relentless of the GOP's ploys. The GOP sniffed
administration blood on this from virtually the moment the first bullets were
fired at the embassy. Failed GOP presidential contender Mitt Romney quickly
piled on calling it "disgraceful" that Obama allegedly did not condemn the
attacks but worse seemed to go out of its way to express sympathy for Arab
protestors.
The race was now officially on to make the case that Obama
did not just fumble the ball on the attack, but was deliberately derelict in
duty, and lied to cover-up both. The hope was that by tossing enough mud on the
administration's wall two months before the November presidential elections would
be enough to cripple, and in a best case hope for the GOP, sink Obama's presidential
reelection bid. The even more hoped for collateral benefit was that Benghazi would
taint then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton enough to knock her out the box
as the Presidential front runner for 2016. It did neither.
But the GOP
still clung to the notion that there was enough dirt in the Benghazi fiasco to
hector and gnaw at Obama. This, despite eight hearings, 30 briefings and interviews with more
than 100 witnesses, and an exhaustive report from the Accountability Review
Board that did find lapses in security, but nothing else. T he sole
purpose of the GOP prodded dog and pony congressional hearings is to rehash the
old charge that Obama covered up for his and Clinton's supposed downplay of the
terrorist threat, minimized security concerns at the Benghazi and other Mid
East US embassies, and ignored its own its own intelligence experts and has
weakened its intelligence apparatus. Everyone, but GOP hit operatives, have
found that there is no proof that Obama had
conclusive evidence at the time that the attack was the handiwork of a
terrorist organization, or if it was terrorist organization. As for anemic
embassy security and the administration's supposed slow motion bungled response
to the actual attack, GOP congressional witch hunters at first were stone
silent about their relentless fight to cut funding and personnel for the very embassy
security that they blame Obama for not providing the Benghazi embassy. In fiscal year 2011, lawmakers shaved $128 million off of
the administration's request for embassy security funding. House Republicans
drained off even more funds in fiscal year 2012 -- cutting back on the
department's request by $331 million. When the finger pointed squarely at them
for cutting embassy security funding, the GOP admitted it and then quickly
sprinted back to its main whipping point of an alleged Obama cover-up of the
attack.
The sad fact is that the Benghazi hearings are only the
latest in the GOP's continuing pitiful pageant play in a bigger drama. That's
to create enough public skepticism and doubt about Obama's policy and
legislative initiatives, and to hopelessly cripple the White House's
effectiveness. The defeat for the moment of the gun curbs in the Senate, the
sniping at the immigration reform package Obama and the Senate are trying to
cobble together, and the continued assault on the Affordable Care Act, are all
part and parcel of the drama that the GOP hopes has one ending. That's to widen
the public perception of a failed presidency that voters will take with them as
campaign 2016 soon unfolds. Some in the GOP aren't content to wait for that. GOP stalking horse and talk show host Mike
Huckabee typified that with the outlandish quip that Benghazi will sink the
Obama administration before his term ends. Huckabee, like the other Obama GOP
scalp hunters, didn't say specifically what new fact that would be uncovered
about Benghazi to cause Obama to tender his resignation.
Benghazi notwithstanding, Obama's overall
foreign policy successes have been too pronounced to be cavalierly dismissed as
inconsequential, or ridiculed as disastrous and harmful. During the third
presidential debate, Romney lightly took a stab at tarring Obama with the
alleged Benghazi cover-up smear. It didn't take. He ended up agreeing more than
disagreeing with Obama on several key foreign policy initiatives. This was done
partly out of the necessity to appeal to the moderate center, and partly out of
the fact that there was no smoking gun revelation to nail Obama with deception
on Benghazi. The GOP, though, will continue to do all possible to hammer the
White House with the fiction that it is directly culpable for the murderous
sequence of events in Libya. It's not about Benghazi, It's about Obama.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst.
He is a frequent political commentator on MSNBC and a weekly co-host of the Al
Sharpton Show on American Urban Radio Network. He is the author of How Obama
Governed: The Year of Crisis and Challenge. He is an associate editor of New
America Media. He is the host of the weekly Hutchinson Report on KTYM-Radio and
the Pacifica Network.